Once we get past the first three chapters of Genesis, there is no text in the Bible which has been such a flashpoint for discussions of gender, power, economics, or the human future as the Revelation to John of Patmos – and it is not a coincidence that these two texts sit in a single sentence, for John is very deliberately writing a book which, after taking on and taking up the entire prophetic tradition, consciously returns to and rewrites the very beginning of scripture. John’s Revelation has been significantly repositioned by recent scholarship, which has understood its connections to… Read more Continue reading Girl and snake at the end of time

As I suggested in the previous post, the fact that patterns of Biblical imagery are now used to inform an understanding of marriage does not necessarily mean that the Biblical text is thereby being honoured; it is possible to read image patterns onto contemporary situations and institutions in a way which stretches the text considerably, perhaps too far to be sustainable. I have already argued that this is the case with the imagery of Christ and the church, which caused problems for the authors of This Holy Estate. I’d like now to look, admittedly briefly, at one of the other… Read more Continue reading Covenant and Treaty